


the destination is yet unknown

by intrepidment



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Road Trip, an interlude of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrepidment/pseuds/intrepidment
Summary: Death is a close acquaintance of theirs. He denies they ever met.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	the destination is yet unknown

> _new jersey_

He drives. They rent a battered Ford Taurus in a washed-out shade of olive green and he drives without plans; without clear goals; without a pre-determined endpoint. He drives until they are too far out to consider turning back again. Soon, he knows, Skinner will realise that his two subordinates are once more not where they're supposed to be, but he can't bring himself to care.

After all, this isn't the worst thing they've done by a far margin. Comparatively speaking, this is barely a blip in the radar.

Scully is asleep; nestled under his jacket he insisted she keep on as a makeshift blanket. Every few minutes he glances over at her as if to reassure himself that she's still there. She is. Of course she is. But even as he hears her stir restlessly in her sleep it does little to steady his nerves. There is a deep-seated fear inside him that one of these days he'll look and she'll be gone as if she never existed in the first place; their entire partnership a dream he conjured up in his lonely imagination.

Earlier, her nose had bled, a slow but steady trickle of crimson red, and she'd turned her head away from him as she fumbled around for a tissue. He'd handed her the pack he kept — now, always — in his pocket. "Sorry," she'd said, embarrassed, as if he had never seen her bloodied, or worse. As if he had caught her in a moment of weakness instead of witnessing proof of her strength, her resilience, so much packed in such a small body.

 _Don't apologise,_ he'd wanted to say, _never apologise, not to me_. Not when his guilt over her current circumstances clung to him for everyone to see and he could not rid himself of it, no matter how hard he tried.

He knows though that Scully would've scolded him if he said that, defensive as she was over him, even when he did not deserve it, so he simply shook his head and smiled. Told her it was alright, and then said it again for extra measure. It's the least he can offer, these smiles, these quiet reassurances that he's okay and she's okay — she _will_ be okay — even though they are more or less his own desperate pleas, spoken into a void made only for them where the powers that be can't hear. She never believes him, but the cadence of his words calms her, unwinds the tension in her shoulders, and for now, it's enough.

The phone goes off, then, and he picks up on the first ring before the sound wakes up his partner.

A booming, faintly annoyed voice: "Agent Mulder." 

"Sir," he says. Years of practice has meant he has become familiar with picking up the signs that he is about to be reprimanded. 

Sure enough: "I notice that you're not at work today. And neither is Agent Scully."

He cradles the phone between his ear and shoulder as he changes lanes on the road. "We, ah, both applied for leave. You didn't get our emails?" He sidesteps the fact that they were both sent simultaneously yesterday evening.

"I did," Skinner says without skipping a beat. "It's a lot of days off, Agent Mulder." 

"Scully needs it."

"And you?"

He doesn't hesitate. "I need to be with her."

There is a long, drawn-out silence on the other side of the phone. He has laid out all his cards on the table. They come in a pair, Scully and him, and one cannot function properly without the other. He can't think, let alone work if he is worrying about Scully. Both of them know this. Skinner lets out a weary sigh. "I'll see the two of you when you get back then." A temporary ceasefire, he supposes. It doesn't escape his notice that Skinner has correctly assumed that Scully is with him right now. 

"Thank you." He gets ready to hang up but the other man clears his throat.

"Take care of her, Mulder," Skinner says, gruffly. The request is not meant to be funny but he chuckles regardless. Isn't it obvious? Hasn't the past few years been proof enough? The instinct to protect Scully is imprinted on his flesh, his bones; it is the very essence of who he is as a person ever since she walked into his basement and made it hers too.

Skinner might as well have asked him if he knew how to breathe.

> _south dakota_

"What are you thinking about?" he asks. This is a game they've started to play when it's dark, and the road is clear, and neither one of them is interested on what's playing on the radio. He's always the first to initiate it: Scully, what are you thinking about? And she says: Nothing, Mulder. I'm thinking about calling my mother. I'm thinking about when our next rest stop will be. I'm thinking of opening the car door and letting myself out if you sing again.

There are no rules except for the expectation that she will respond to his question. She is currently on a winning streak. He hopes it'll never end but knows that like all things it must, it must.

Today, she answers, "I'm thinking that I used to be nothing like you."

He laughs. "I'm pretty sure that was established when Blevins sent you to spy on me, but go on."

"I believe in science, but I also believe in God. All my life, I've held onto my faith even when it has tested me."

At that, he glances at her askance. He asks, cautiously, carefully, "But now?"

She closes her eyes. Raises a hand to her necklace. The gold cross glints at certain angles as it catches the light and he remembers wearing it during the long months when she went missing as an anchor, a tether; his only physical link back to her. "I'm not sure if my prayers are being answered."

"Should I pray with you then? Double your chances of being heard?"

"Mulder."

He is serious. "I'd do it for you, Scully. You know I would."

"Yes, Mulder. I know: I've always known."

> _new york_

They stop at New York because they can, and it's a nice change, being able to do whatever they want. Despite the fact that neither of them are in their work clothes, they look awfully out of place here. It's something in the way they hold themselves in the sea of loose-limbed, relaxed tourists strolling down Broadway that sets them apart. Their posture gives them away instantly. The persona of a government official never fades, it seems; it follows them around wherever they go.

They are FBI agents before they are Mulder and Scully, and it bothers him even though this is all he has ever known.

Still, Scully looks happy so his mood has brightened by default. She pulls him by the arm when he falls a step behind, and he slows down even more on purpose until she has to drag him along bodily by force. They laugh. He feels a swell of pride, like he's accomplished something truly great.

Dusk is fast approaching; the sky a lazy streak of pink and purple.

"Where should we stay?" she asks. "I doubt there's any cheap motels around here."

He points to a building. The neon rooftop sign shines at the top of it like a red beacon. Essex House. A 5-star hotel. "My treat," he says. 

"Mulder, no," she protests, aghast, "it's too expensive."

He guides her through the front door and across the fancy marble-tiled lobby even as she frets and fusses over the price of staying for only a single night. "It's fine," he says firmly. It's more than fine. He can’t buy away her cancer, but he can use what he inherited from his father on her and not feel like it's blood money because it's _her_. It's Scully.

"I'd like two adjoining rooms," he tells the woman at the front desk. 

"Actually, one room with separate beds is fine," Scully interrupts. He stares at her and she falters, her bravado fading the longer he looks. "I just thought—since we've shared a room before...it's cheaper. Unless—"

"No," he says, too quick. He clears his throat. "No. That sounds good."

A small upturned curve of her mouth. "Good," she says.

> _nebraska_

The car has broken down. Scully speaks to the mechanic in a clipped Do Not Mess With Me tone before hanging up on them mid-sentence. "Amateurs," she seethes. It'll be hours before help arrives.

He passes the time by imagining a world where the stars align.

To some people, it is obvious the role Scully plays in his life. She is his best friend. His partner. The smartest person he knows. He is a lucky sonofabitch, they say. She deserves better than him. And they're right: she does. His cause was meant to be a one-man journey but she got her own ticket and joined him along for the ride, and he forgets now if he was ever happier alone.

There are other things though, things he has become privy of the longer he's known her. She is empathetic but pragmatic; vulnerable but defiant. She has a medical doctor's hands that can mend and fix and comfort, but they are also calloused and strong. Tougher than you would expect them to be.

She is his better half. His unmatched equal. 

"Scully, I—"

"Don't," she says and she looks frightened, like a fawn caught out alone in the open. She knows what he wants to say, he realises. Perhaps it is written on his face. Perhaps she is thinking of the exact same words. Her eyes are bright. Luminous. She is trying not to cry. "Not like this."

 _So when?_ he wants to ask. They are hardly two people with the habit of good timing. He has nothing to give; his hands are empty. All he has left are these words, if she'll accept them. He should've scared her off before this happened. This could've been avoided if he were a more considerate person. Leave, Scully. Get as far away from me as you can. But also: Don't. Stay close. Please don't go.

Please never leave me.

> _ohio_

Here: a dilapidated supermarket in the middle of nowhere, where the customers are few, and the workers are rarely seen. Scully picks out fresh produce that will spoil too easily in the car. When he tells her this, she ignores him. They argue some more. He is persistent, and she is stubborn, and this is the symbiosis that their relationship operates on. 

He slouches on his forearms as he pushes along the shopping cart. "Bananas are not a snack, you know. At least, it's not one that I want."

"It's healthy. High in potassium."

"I already eat healthy."

She scoffs. "Mulder, your diet consists entirely of sunflower seeds and takeout food."

"Like I said—healthy."

"You should eat better. You're not getting any younger."

"I'm still young though."

"Maybe for now. But you won't be forever."

He straightens up. "Scully," he says quietly. He doesn't like where this conversation is going. The future is a nebulous, uncertain topography of which he has no desire to explore at the moment. The present is what grounds him to her, and it's where he wants to stay.

Overhead, the lights flicker; an unflattering, pale yellow fluorescence. A Billie Holiday song plays on the loudspeaker on repeat.

She ducks her head and her hair falls forward as she inspects the overripe skin of a Honeycrisp apple. He can't see her face anymore. "I want you to live for a very long time," she tells him. Only the slight shake in her voice gives her away.

His hand cups her chin and tilts her head up, up, towards him, but she does not meet his eyes, so he settles for memorising every inch of her face. He is creating a sculpture of her in his mind, but nothing can capture how much she means to him.

 _Not without you,_ he thinks. _Not without you._

> _missouri_

He splits his plate of ribs with her but she doesn't touch it. The chemo, she explains. No appetite. But Scully watches him eat like she is satiated just from looking. As he prattles on — _I'm moving to St. Louis if it means having this every day, Scully, really, I am_ — she reaches out and wipes away the reddish-brown sauce from the corner of his mouth. Licks her thumb to get rid of the remaining mess. "I'm returning the favour," she says. 

Brain temporarily addled, it takes him more than a few seconds to recall what she's talking about. Ah. Right. Clay's Barbecue. "Those were some good ribs."

"They were," she says. "It's a shame what happened."

He agrees with her. What a shame.

After, on the way to the car, he is sluggish. Too full. She walks a few steps backwards ahead of him, and he keeps an eye out on the surroundings behind her so she doesn't trip. She knows he's doing this, which is why she doesn't look back. "This is fun," she says.

"What's fun? Watching me potentially pass out into a food coma? You're a cruel woman, Dana Scully."

She shakes her head. "Being out on the road with you. Doing nothing. Everything. It's fun."

He's not sure what his expression says, but under the dimly lit lights along the footpath, he sees her cheeks bloom pink. The spot of colour is a relief to him. She is too pale, nowadays. Too thin. He takes what he can get. "Yes," he says, and his voice is soft and affectionate, and there is a pressure on his chest that is not from the food, "this is fun."

Scully stops in front of the car with her back against the window of the driver's seat. She looks up at him and does not move when he expects her to move. She is steeling herself for what she will say next. For her, he is patient. He waits. 

"Remember me like this."

His smile fades. The pressure in his chest tightens, squeezes, and forces all the air out from his lungs. How peculiar, he thinks, to be able to drown on dry land. "Scully—"

"Remember me like this," she says again, but she means, _remember me alive_ instead of dead, perished, deceased, and he refuses to acknowledge a world where she is not in it because it is impossible; unthinkable. So he says nothing.

Around them, the words curl and fade out into the empty street: here, then gone.

> _texas_

Somewhere along the I-10 interstate, she turns to him and says, "I am not Samantha."

He looks at her, surprised. She'd been silent for a long while now and he'd been filling in the gaps in conversation with inane chatter. "I know you're not," he says. It's true. They are the same age, Scully and Samantha, and sometimes he wonders whether they would've been good friends if they met, but he has never, not once, thought of them as one and the same. "Why would you think that?"

"I don't. It's just—" Scully takes a moment to collect herself. "Don't make me your X-File. Not again."

His grip is white-knuckled on the wheel. He flexes his hands. Relaxes. "I don't know what you mean," he lies.

"I am not Samantha," she repeats. "I have cancer. I'm going to die. It's as simple as that."

"How many times do I have to prove it to you?" he snaps. "It's never that simple." 

"It _is_ ," she insists. "It can be. You're not going to get the answers you want. Not with me. Focus on your sister. Find out what happened to her."

"And what, forget about you?" She doesn't respond and his anger grows; multiplies in tens and hundreds and thousands. "Do you really think that little of me, Scully? Do you really think that you're just a chapter in my life I can close like a goddamn unsolved case I can't be bothered with? I can't do that, Scully. Don't fucking ask me to that."

"You should," she says hoarsely, "for your own sanity."

"I can't lose you, Scully," and he is proving her point because he sounds deranged, unhinged; the cliché proverbial mad man rocking back and forth in his chair, _Doctor, Doctor, I'm sane_ , _I swear it,_ "I won't let you go."

He is a man declaring war against reality itself.

Her hand finds his larger one across the console. Later, he will touch her wrist just to feel the steady beat of her pulse underneath his fingertips and they will both pretend not to know what he's doing. "That's what I'm afraid of," she says.

> _georgia_

She is taking too long in the bath and he is nervous. It's almost been an hour. The television volume, which was put on low to begin with, is now on mute. He sits up from the bed and approaches the bathroom slowly. "Scully?" 

On the other side, he can hear the sound of muffled cries and his hand is on the handle before he can think about it any further. "Scully," he warns, "I'm coming in." Steam flows out the moment he opens the door before clearing away, and then there is only her with red-rimmed eyes and a towel held to her nose. Droplets of blood fall into the bathwater, changing it from transparent into a deep vermillion. "Oh, Scully," he says.

"It won't stop," she manages to say between heaving gasps, "I can't make it stop." 

He grabs a fresh towel before kneeling down next to her and touching the water. It is lukewarm. Practically cold. "Let's get you out of the bath." As he manoeuvres her carefully out of the bathtub and wraps the towel around her, she whispers his name. "Are you okay?"

She shudders. "I—My poor mother—she's already lost so many people in her life. My father...Melissa...you have to be there for her. When the time comes. You have to be there for her. Promise me you'll be there for her."

"You're not going anywhere," he says fiercely. 

"Mulder, I'm _dying._ " She removes the towel covering her nose and blood flows freely down her chin. He moves the towel back in place and keeps his hand on top of hers, staining them both red. "Promise me, Mulder."

"I won't because you're going to get better. You're going to stay alive."

She sobs and he holds her to his chest. He is selfish. She is digging her own grave and he is pulling her out of it because if she can cheat death once, she can do it again for herself and her family, and most of all for him, because he is selfish before he is considerate and she is all he has left. 

He is selfish.

> _washington dc_

When the movie is over, Scully does not leave. They sit through the rolling credits until the screen turns into static and the video tape whirls pitifully in the VCR. It's a Sunday night. She's been over to his apartment three times this week in a row.

"I don't want to go to work tomorrow," she tells him suddenly.

He grins. "Then don't. Take the day off. I'll join you." 

She looks at him eagerly. "What should we do?"

He was half-joking but her expression makes him pause. He hasn't seen her this excited in weeks. It is a sight to behold and he wants to see it again. He is hopeful. He is worried.  He wants to take her on an adventure.

Scully, he says. Scully. Let's go on a road trip.


End file.
